Posted
by
Roblimoon Tuesday March 19, 2013 @02:06PM
from the yes-honey-that-dress-looks-great-on-you-no-you're-not-fat dept.

The guy who came up with the LazyHusband app, Ethan Duggan, isn't married. That's good, because he's only 12 years old. One of his local (Las Vegas) TV stations says this about him: "...the 12-year-old from Henderson, Nev., said he was tired of always replying to his mother's questions of how she looked in an outfit, he came up with common phrases that, with a touch of the screen, can tell his mother, 'You look amazing today.'" The app costs 99 cents for iOS, Android or Kindle. Ethan admits that Dad helped, but says the app is his own work and was his idea. He's now working on Lazy Kid and Lazy Wife. The TV story says, "Phrases for Lazy Kid include, yes, I did my homework and I love you. Ethan said he is having a hard time coming up with common phrases that a wife might say to her husband." Pro basketball retiree turned business guy Shaquille O'Neal is reportedly interested in LazyHusband, which means you may hear plenty more about LazyHusband and the prodigy who created it.

Tim: Ethan what are we looking at here?

Ethan: Well, the app is called LazyHusband, and what it is is the wife comes home and she asks how do I look, and you pull out the app and say, “You look amazing today.”

Tim: You look amazing today. What were you inspired by?

Ethan: Well I come home and I am resting, and my mom she has like 20, 30, or 40 dresses, she goes into her room, tries them on, and comes to me; I am playing on a phone not really caring, she asks, “How do I look?” I say, “You look amazing,” not even looking. And she does this a couple of times, and I realize, I hold in my hand a smart phone. So I hold it over my head, with my video, and then I go “You look amazing” and a couple of other phrases, and I hold those above my head and I play them instead of actually answering.

Tim: So there must be a pretty good market of lazy husbands out there?

Ethan: Yes, there is.

Tim: Are you just launching this out now?

Ethan: Yes. We are launching at South By Southwest.

Tim: Okay. What sort of tools did you use in creating it?

Ethan: We are using Twitter Bootstrap, Phonegap, and we are also using a lot of W3 Schools, and stack overflow. I learnt to program JavaScript with the help of my dad, and Codeacademy.com.

Tim: Did you find Codeacademy to be a pretty useful course then?

Ethan: I found it really useful.

Tim: Are you making money from your app?

Ethan: Yes, it is 99 cents.

Tim: Alright.

Ethan: It is on Android, iPhone, and Kindle.

Tim: What about desktops?

Ethan: No.

Tim: So what other apps are in your future?

Ethan: We have LazyWife and LazyKid coming up. We also have a bunch more features for Lazy Family in store, and one of our next app is Bargument which allows you to create a Wikipedia page that is completely fake, to prove arguments at bars, so that you are right and the other person is wrong.

Tim: So Apple has an age limit. How did you get around the age limit for being such a young app developer?

Ethan: My dad made the account.

Tim: Okay. So in a sense he is your employee in that way.

Ethan: Yes, yes.

Tim: Is it a family enterprise overall, both your parents are involved?

Ethan: Yeah, my mom is really supportive, my dad helps me if I am stuck, and I do most of the bulk of the programming.

Tim: If somebody is also younger than the average developer who wants to get started at it, do you have any good advice for them?

Ethan: For every hour that you spend coding, you are going to spend at least seven hours debugging. And Stack Overflow is your friend.

Tim: How many hours did you spend in creating this app overall?

Ethan: I don’t have an estimate, I don’t really know, but I think it is around 12 weeks that I spent building it. We had a lot of betas.

Tim: Do you have a lot of friends who are in your age bracket who are also developing?

Ethan: No. I actually have one friend who programs in I believe Ruby.

Tim: Okay. The fact that your app is targeted towards lazy people, there should be one for lazy employees. And you want to do this for your life? Do you see programing as a job option?

Ethan: Yes I do either programing or computer building.

Tim: What do you expect in the future of hand held apps?

Ethan: A lot more and a lot cooler stuff.

Tim: Are you ever without a phone on you?

Ethan: In the pool, in the shower. And that’s it.

Ethan: Then there are phrases, recordings.

Tim: And if I can hold that right by my mike, let me have you activate some of the phrases _____3:51.

Ethan: It easily starts recording, and then you start.

Tim: Can you play a few of the phrases you’ve got like “You are beautiful”?

It took me a second to realize that he may be a prodigy after all. Not for the app, but for the marketing. Sell the same app a couple times to everyone with a different set of canned phrases instead of one generalized app that will let you select from a custom list of messages. Meh.

Kids who achieve that kind of thing almost without exception have an adult guiding them along. I'd be willing to bet this is no exception, there's an adult hiding behind him doing all the publicity work.

It took me a second to realize that he may be a prodigy after all. Not for the app, but for the marketing. Sell the same app a couple times to everyone with a different set of canned phrases instead of one generalized app that will let you select from a custom list of messages. Meh.

Hey, what do you know? This may all end up with a PhD thesis on next-gen natural language generation.;)

You think women are that easy to gameplay? Think again. I was given all kinds of grief one night because before a party I told her she looked lovely in the dress she was trying on but DIDN'T want to wear.

Really, if we can't even be bothered to come up with a compliment ourselves (even if it is a cliché), but have to rely on an app to do it for us... Next thing you know it's going to automatically message your SO with compliments:(

Do colleges actually have official dances? If mine did, I was sincerely unaware. All the dancing I knew of was at house parties or club events. (Club as in a group of students with a common interest, not a loud, sweat bars with limited personal space. Though I'm sure those had some dancing too.) Then again, I went to a University with 35,000 undergraduates, so we didn't even have one graduation. Maybe the Liberal Arts kids got to have dances.:)

I first received my AARP application when I was 25. I displayed it for several years on my office door. I received another not long ago, at 38.

I get one about every other month. I think I'm not living in the right neighborhood...

They took my money and I had a valid membership at age 29. But when I called to get my darn discount card, they said, "Oops - you're too young for the card, but you can keep paying dues and receiving the magazine if you'd like." I don't know how they missed that beforehand; the application asks for your birthdate.

"Ethan said he is having a hard time coming up with common phrases that a wife might say to her husband."

Let me get you started, kiddo:

1. No i don't want to have sex tonight2. No i won't be cooking dinner tonight3. No I don't want to have sex tonight4. We are out of food, seriously there is nothing to eat [play this automatically any time user is near a refrigerator]5. for the last time, no we aren't having sex tonight so shut up already!

Your wife seems to be the problem. It is more fun if you are the problem.

1. No, I will not hold your beer for you while you try that.2. And I won't call 911 afterward either.3. And don't you dare come into the house and drip blood on the floor to use the phone.4. I think they put a guard on there for a reason. Why are you taking it off?5. Your life insurance policy is paid up, right?6. I am going back inside.

"Ethan said he is having a hard time coming up with common phrases that a wife might say to her husband."

Let me get you started, kiddo:

1. No i don't want to have sex tonight2. No i won't be cooking dinner tonight3. No I don't want to have sex tonight4. We are out of food, seriously there is nothing to eat [play this automatically any time user is near a refrigerator]5. for the last time, no we aren't having sex tonight so shut up already!

6. I'm sorry, I fell asleep again, could you pick up dinner for the family on your way home?7. I can't find my phone.8. I can't find my iPad.9. I'm at yoga, can I call you back later?10. I'm out buying more $useless_shit, can you take care of it instead?11. I'm on Facebook, I'll get right back to you.12. I'm on Facebook, uploading pictures is eating all the bandwidth.13. I'm on Facebook, did you see what she posted?14. I'm on Facebook, I'll check that later.15. Go ahead, but I fo

"No comment."
"It was done in full compliance with the law"
"We would love to, but {the_other_party} will block that"
"That's the fault of my predecessor and he does not work here anymore"
"Yes, if we get more funding"
"Yes, it takes away some liberties, but it's for the children!"
"We would love to, but cancelling that bloody contract is not possible."
"If we let that happen, then the terrorists have won!"
"That's a great question"
"We will appoint a committee to investigate that"
"Pull down your trousers

Hard as it may be to believe, people in general are getting smarter. It's not that people are smart, it's that they used to be even more stupid in the past. Also the stupidity of people used to be limited to their neighborhood before the ubiquity of internet access.

It only takes a few smart people to keep society going. It defies intuition, but it is demonstrated in real life on a daily basis.

I work in an office full of successful women. So if any person (man or woman) can't get the respect they think they deserve they need to do something to get it instead of using their victim roles as an excuse to (passive aggresive, anyone?) spread the poison to others.

Now we have an app that spouts the most overused word in English history; AMAZING. everything's AMAZING, have you noticed how AMAZING everything is these days? It's such an AMAZING word, I'd be AMAZED if anyone ever used any other non-AMAZING adjective besides AMAZING, ever again.

I had a sister who used to always ask me how her outfits look. So I got honest."Yes, that outfit is great if you want to project an image of an desperate crazy chick trying to hook up.""Wow, the belt takes your eyes away from how fat your ass is.""Yes, that shirt shows enough cleavage to keep that maybe a drunk dude will try to get some action.""I'm sure the other people will be impressed with how you manage to fit all your rolls into those tight clothes."

"I'm fine.""Nothing.""Not tonight honey, I have a headache.""Dinner is ready""Honnneeeey, I need your help with something.""Your turn to feed the baby.""I don't need anything for my birthday, really.""You want a B---J--, I want a Mercedes, neither one of us are getting what we want tonight."

You make apps with little to no substance. This app sounds like it would take me an hour to write. I'll bet you could find a instructional app like this as an example of how to play multimedia files in an application on w3schools.

This app is basically just the software incarnation of a lame joke based on a tired premise.

Normally I would assume the father did 100% of the work, but thought it would be cute if the kid got all the credit. If the kids didn't admit to his dad helping, I might be tempted to bel

I realize the kid is 12, and my intention wasn't to belittle his desire to learn to program. I love programming and I think it's great when a kid wants to learn how to do it. My purpose was to attempt to demystify how it is possible that a 12 year old kid can produce an iphone and android app in 12 weeks (something which can take teams of professional programmers funded by millions of dollars months or even years to accomplish depending on the app). I am sure he's a bright kid, but this isn't completely